


Please Do Not Disturb the Aliens

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:39:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5067334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of snapshots of what happens at the Citadel Tower when the human embassy decides to celebrate Halloween. Spoilers: Shenanigans is what happens. Of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Do Not Disturb the Aliens

Ever since coming back from the dead, Commander Shepard had been answering the comm in clothing that was definitely not Alliance regs. Given they were undercover working with Cerberus for the time being, the Council had no issue with this, provided they at least wore pants. Anderson wanted to insist on a shirt, too, but he was outvoted.

The gray sweats and Blasto shirt they answered the comm in today were expected. The gorilla mask, as Anderson later informed the others it was, was not.

“Commander, what are you doing?” Tevos asked, brow furrowed.

Jai shrugged, lifting the mask off their face so they could take a drink of coffee. “It’s Halloween, and this was the best I could do on short notice. Miranda’s mad, but I think that’s just ‘cause Jack stole her suit and put on a wig.”

The councilors just stared, and Jai took another drink of coffee before adding, “Anderson, where’s your costume?”

Anderson coughed into his fist. “I still have a few finishing touches to make.”

“Damn.”

For the rest of the call, the non-human councilors tried not to focus on how weird it was that the mask’s mouth didn’t move when Jai spoke.

* * *

On his way back to the embassy from the call to Shepard, Valern was intercepted by a small cluster of diplomats. “Have you been to the human embassy today?” Sur’Kesh’s ambassador Aehe started off immediately.

He raised a brow. “Why would I?”

Esheel handed him a datapad. “Some human ambassador was carrying a bunch of streamers and plastic things, so we rigged a sacrificial intern with a camera and sent them up with an offering of donuts.”

“You couldn’t have just _asked?_ ”

“This was more fun.”

“Fair enough.” He hit play on the vid file, stopping in his walk so the others could crowd around and watch.

The human embassy was a mess of black and orange, with some purple and white thrown in here and there. What appeared to be little balls covered in white tissue paper had been hung from the ceiling, the windows were plastered with clings, bowls of candy were set out on a table, and orange gourds, the larger ones with shapes carved into them, had been placed on desks and in corners. “What in the Listener’s name…”

Esheel took the datapad back, slipping it into her bag. “Something called ‘Halloween,’ according to the extranet. Human holiday. No idea why they’re celebrating it here this year when they never have before, of course.”

Valern frowned slightly. Shepard had mentioned something about ‘Halloween.’ “Any plans to investigate?”

“We were waiting on you, sir,” Aehe said, folding her arms.

He considered this, then nodded. “Right. Aehe, Esheel, with me. Rest of you, back to work.”

* * *

Sparatus turned his head to watch as Valern, Esheel, and another salarian he only dimly recognized trotted by, then shook his head. “So two bitter political rivals walk into a bar…” he grumbled, turning his head back to face front. “I’m going to find out what they’re up to later, and I can guarantee I’m not going to like it,” he complained to his wife walking alongside him.

She hummed, nudging him with her shoulder. “Relax, I doubt they’ll do anything too destructive. Not while they’re still in the tower, anyway.”

“You don’t know them.”

She rolled her eyes and squeezed his hand in hers. “You’re paranoid. Did you see Callie’s message this morning?”

He raised a brow plate at her. “No. Why, what happened?”

“Nothing happened. The kids’ school is doing a cultural week, so today they’re letting the humans show off some holiday they have where you dress up in costumes and get candy. All the kids are encouraged to join.”

“And?”

“ _And_ , your daughter thought we’d like to see our grandchildren in their costumes.” She pulled up her omni-tool and tapped a few keys, then moved so Sparatus could see the displayed image of two young crestless turians, a silver in a puffy, sparkly black-and-yellow dress and plastic crown and a sooty gray in footie pajamas designed to look like a varren when the hood was up, complete with tail and spines. The gray had the hood over her eyes, just her nose, mouth, and stubby mandibles visible- not that it would bother her, of course. Vitiltiria was completely blind.

Sparatus took a moment to look at the picture and memorize it, then slowly put a hand over his heart. “My _babies_.”

His wife snorted and put her omni-tool away. “You’re such a sap.”

“Oh, like you weren’t bawling like a baby when you found out you were going to be a grandmother.”

“Hey, Casbius was the first grandchild, and they sprung it on us so _suddenly_.”

Sparatus rolled his eyes, and his wife chuckled to herself. “Anyway, so Callie said she’s going to be at parent-teacher conferences all evening and all day tomorrow, and Carrinia is working late, so we’re watching the girls tonight. Cal says under no circumstances am I to let you talk them into giving you any of their candy.”

“My own daughter and my beloved wife, conspiring against me. Truly, I’m wounded.”

“You’re looking to get another lecture from your doctor, is what you are.”

“Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“I’m covering Council proceedings today. If I go, you go.”

* * *

Tevos was making tea when Irissa entered the embassy looking like she’d just seen her entire seven-century life flash before her eyes seventeen times in two minutes. “Irissa?”

Irissa shook herself, then rubbed at her temples. “I’m going to stay in my office for the rest of the day,” she said, walking over to where Tevos was standing. “The humans are up to something, and I want no part of it.”

Tevos frowned, idly waving a hand over her tea to try and make it cool down faster. “Why? What are they doing?”

Irissa busied herself with making her own tea as she answered. “They’re all running around in ridiculous costumes. Ambassador Osoba said it was some sort of holiday, but I saw _bones_ hanging from the wall. Little skeletons. What sort of holiday features skeletons?”

“There’s that turian one signaling the beginning of prey-scarce. And the drell one honoring their dead. And the krogan-”

“Yes, yes,” Irissa interrupted. “I’ve seen those. But they’re _respectful_ to the bones. The humans just had them strung up like garlands.”

“Could they have been plastic?” Tevos asked, taking a sip of her tea and immediately deciding it was definitely still too hot.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t get close enough to find out.” She shook her head. “I saw Councilor Valern and a couple ambassadors investigating. I’ll ask Esheel what they found later.”

* * *

There was a distinct order to how the Council entered the chamber for meetings. First went Tevos, the most experienced of all of them. Sparatus and Valern walked in as a pair, as best friends whom everyone joked were joined at the hip were wont to do. Anderson, as the newest councilor, came last, trailing a respectful distance behind Sparatus and Valern. Close enough to listen in on their conversation, but far enough away so he didn’t look it.

Today’s topic of discussion was sports; more specifically, a friendly argument over whether biotiball or turian clawball was the better sport. As near as Anderson could figure, Sparatus was rather passionately defending clawball, while Valern was arguing for biotiball.

Anderson glanced between the bickering councilors, then coughed into his fist. “Afternoon.”

The two turned to look at him, and then the hours he’d spent applying makeup paid off.

Admittedly, he’d never really heard a salarian scream before. Yelp, gasp, yell, and other such startled noises, certainly. But never a real scream.

It was a higher-pitched noise than he would have expected from Valern, a piercing, shrill shriek as he jumped nearly double his seven-foot height and came down just far enough over that Sparatus was forced to catch him, wrapping his long arms around the turian’s head and still letting out that high scream.

Sparatus also screamed, though it was a much deeper noise than Valern’s, more a bellow really, and was cut off abruptly by having to catch his friend. A turian scream was a noise that reverberated deep in Anderson’s chest, setting his hair on end and making all his bones vibrate with the sound. He jumped significantly less than Valern, but he still had to scramble to stay upright, talons scratching the floor rapidly.

Anderson grinned. “Relax, it’s makeup.”

Sparatus let out a high, distressed trill. “Don’t _do_ that! I have a bad heart!”

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “Halloween’s about dressing up as things that scare you, and what’s scarier than Udina on the Council?”

Tevos, who had jumped at the other councilor’s screaming and looked like she was still debating whether or not she’d just had a heart attack, ran a hand over her crest. “Councilor Anderson, was that really necessary?”

“Absolutely.”

Just as Sparatus was dumping Valern on the floor, the Council chambers were filled with loud, manic cackling. Anderson, Tevos, and Valern stiffened, but Sparatus only scowled and barked something in what Anderson guessed was a closed dialect.

The laughter abruptly cut off, and an almost musical-sounding alto of a voice chattered back in the same language. Anderson squinted and looked around, then spotted a vaguely familiar female turian with a camera drone leaning against a column. He was pretty sure he’d seen her walking around the tower with Sparatus before- his wife, that was it, he remembered Valern introducing him to her. He couldn’t remember her name for the life of him, but he definitely remembered Sparatus letting him know in no uncertain terms that he was to address her as Lady Sparatus after he’d accidentally referred to her as an intern.

The two turians went back and forth a couple more times, then Sparatus let out a scandalized gasp and put a hand on his keelbone. “How dare you kiss me with that mouth!”

“What, what’d she say?” Anderson asked, trotting up.

His wife just laughed again. “I said he has to do the dishes tonight!”

Sparatus grimaced and shook a hand like he was flicking off water. “I hate doing dishes. Soggy food takes _hours_ to clean out from between your plates.”

Anderson raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “You’re the one who willingly dressed up as Udina. I don’t think I’m the weird one in this situation.”

* * *

Anderson wiped off the last of the makeup disguising him as Udina as, over the comm, Shepard cackled. “Man, Anderson, you shoulda seen it! Like, Joker had this black hooded robe thing on, right, and a bunch of makeup so he’d look like that evil emperor dude from _Star Wars_ , right, and Jacob was Mace Windu, had this neat lightsaber replica and everything, and they did this whole routine in the mess hall, like with dialogue from the movies and everything, and I think Manda got it on vid, and it was great!”

Anderson chuckled. “I hope your alien friends took Halloween better than everyone here did.”

Shepard chewed their lip. “Well, Garrus refused to come out of the main battery, and Mordin said something about experiments and didn’t come out of the lab for the rest of the day, and apparently Tali was giving Donnelly and Daniels the stink-eye every time they looked over, and I haven’t even _heard_ from Thane or Samara… Grunt liked it, though! He and Jack ate, like, _all_ the candy Gardner put out. He had to hide the extra stuff just to make sure there’d be some for everyone else.”

Anderson smiled and threw away the last makeup-stained paper towel. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, kid. I have to go now, but send me that vid of the _Star Wars_ routine.”

“Will do! Bye, Anderson!”

Shepard cut the comm, and Anderson got to his feet, turning off his terminal as he rounded the desk to leave. He’d stayed late at the embassy to catch up on paperwork he’d put off in favor of perfecting his costume, so the place was practically deserted as he walked out.

A fact he was grateful for when he let out a decidedly unmanly scream at the sight that greeted him on the other side of the door.

A big, reddish-brown _thing_ , with compound eyes the size of three of him, a gaping maw filled with row upon row of huge, sharp, pointed teeth, and hundreds of legs that looked about as wide as his shoulders in diameter and so long most were folded up so as not to push through the walls of the tower weaved back and forth before him, drooling and letting out a very heavy breathing sound. If he had to hazard a guess, he’d put his money on the unholy result of a centipede, a lamprey, a thresher maw, and a housefly being smashed together.

Then he heard a quiet _click_ , not unlike an omni-tool camera app, and the monster fizzled and disappeared, replaced by manic cackling and two long, tall shapes ambling towards him.

Stunned, Anderson watched as Valern and Esheel sauntered up to him, laughing. “Nice touch with the drool,” Valern was saying when they got close enough for Anderson to hear. “I thought that effect was still in testing.”

“It is,” Esheel said smugly, playing with her omni-tool. “A friend on Gorot II is letting me run beta-tests for them.

Salarians were _creepy_ when they showed their teeth in a grin, Anderson noted. Maybe it was the eyes. Their big, bulbous eyes paired with toothy grins made the councilor and chief ambassador look downright slasher-movie-esque. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded, once he’d managed to find his voice.

The two salarians shared a mischievous grin. “It’s Halloween,” Valern said innocently.

“The whole point is to _scare_ people,” Esheel added. “You said so yourself.”

Anderson frowned, processing this. “Wait, so then that was..?”

“Payback,” the two salarians answered in unison. Valern added, “We tweaked a decoy program some engineers at Mannovai have been playing with.”

“You mean _I_ did,” Esheel said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uploaded some footage of a _waotyan’ai_ , did a bit of fiddling, and instant monster, just add victim.”

Anderson blinked. “A what?”

“A _waotyan’ai_ ,” Esheel said, pulling up a picture of the thing on her omni-tool to show Anderson. “Predators of ours back on Sur’Kesh. They only live in the deepest parts of the jungle, where only the brave venture.”

“Or the stupid,” Valern added with a shrug. “They’re endangered on Sur’Kesh, but the population is stable, so our naturalists aren’t too worried. And we can get good footage for holograms.”

He and Esheel high-fived (or was it high-three?), and Anderson shook his head. “Fine, you got me good. Just one thing, though; I thought you hated each other?”

They glanced at each other, then shrugged. “Team-ups don’t always mean friendship, just mutual benefit,” Valern said. “I needed somebody whose specialty isn’t pyrotechnics-”

“- and I needed somebody with a similar interest in scaring whoever was responsible for bringing Halloween to the Tower,” Esheel concluded.

Anderson raised an eyebrow. “And why did you think it was me?”

“It was the only logical conclusion. You are the only one working in the human embassy who is both relatively new and has the authority to get it done. You only didn’t do it last year because you were still settling in as councilor.”

He blinked, then shrugged sheepishly. “You got me. Is that all?”

The salarians nodded. “Have a nice weekend, Councilor,” Esheel said, turning to walk off. “Try to avoid the turian embassy for the next week or so. Clawball semifinals start tomorrow.”

Valern nodded and headed off in the other direction. “Which means that’s all I’m going to hear about for a month. And then it’s the _finals_ …”

Anderson glanced back and forth at the retreating salarians, then put a hand to his neck to feel for his pulse. Noting his heart was still going faster than it should after his scare, he shook his head and opened his omni-tool, making a note to himself to make sure the… whatever it was called was _only_ on Sur’Kesh.


End file.
